Monday, February 23, 2015

I was recently in a vehicle collision with thankfully no injuries. It was severe enough to destroy my van and all my seats needed to be replaced. (Goodbye Ole 'Dessy! We had great times! LOL.)

Anyways, since getting new seats and also sharing a few tough carseat storiesonline, I've received multiple messages asking me what carseats I ended up choosing and if I had any advice for others.

Before I continue, I want to emphasize something really important that needs saying all the time.

The BEST AND SAFEST SEAT is the one that you ALWAYS install correctly and ALWAYS buckle correctly for EVERY car ride!

Parents naturally want to choose the best seat for their children. Since carseats are all regulated in our country and since carseat companies try to stay competitive, you have a lot of perceived choices on the shelf, but not really as much difference as you fear.

Put your focus on finding the seat that fits into your vehicle, that you can install well and that your child will ALWAYS use correctly for EVERY SINGLE CAR RIDE. That's how you get the safest seat. What my kids like, and what fits into my Honda Odyssey might not be right for your children and your vehicle.

Visit a store or two and have your children sit in various carseats. Find out what they like. Think about options you need or want such as recline options or fabric that is better for hot summers. Have your older children buckle and unbuckle the harness. Can they do it? Does it hurt to do it? Is it too easy for Houdini toddlers who should NOT be unbuckling? Install a few of the select choices into your car. Can you do it fairly easily? Do you feel confident with your finished install? Does it fit on the seat? Do you need extra equipment to make it fit? These are things only you can decide and only after putting in a little bit of effort.

So....here's what I ended up purchasing.

1. For my 6 year old who is too tall and heavy to rearface, I purchased a Britax Pinnacle Clicktight. It has one of the tallest harness heights on the market at 20.5 inches. (As a comparison, the popular Graco Nautilus has a height of 18-18.5 inches.) I selected the Pinnacle as it has the most side impact material out of the other Britax options in this class. (Other options include the Pioneer and Frontier.) I chose the clicktight because it's super duper amazingly awesome and if you can afford it, you will likely love it.

This is my 4 year old sitting in the KidsEmbrace Batman seat for $150.
Look at the top harness slot.

This is the same child sitting in the Britax Pinnacle.
Look at the top slot. Big difference!

2. For my two middle children, they are going into Diono RXTs. We rearface past 40lbs, so that means we have limited options based on height and weight combination since my kids will outgrow by height before weight. If your child is trending to outgrow by weight first, you can find a couple other options that reach into the 50lb range such as the Diono Rainier and the Foonf.

3. My baby went into a Britax Boulevard Clicktight. He is taking after his grandpa and is tall for his age, mostly in his torso, so I went straight for Britax with their taller shells. It only rearfaces to 40lbs, but by then he will get one of the RXTs from his older brothers. I'm also addicted to the clicktight option, what can I say.

Pictures don't really turn out well with rearfacing lol!

This was easier for me to do because our insurance company cut us a check to buy these seats. I'm normally on a very strict budget and not "rich" in any sense of the word, so I do relate to those who look at carseat prices and want to hide in the bathroom with chocolate. One thing I would say is to try to anticipate your child's needs ahead of time so you can look for clearance. Carseat companies are competitive and try to release new colours with somewhat unnecessary upgrades twice a year (cup holders, extra recline angles, pillows, etc). So you can take advantage of clearance prices and save up ahead of time instead of buying full price right when your child needs a seat. This is how I previously obtained my carseats.

If you have less time, check out Amazon. Sometimes you can find random price drops, especially if you are flexible with fabric options. For example, The Britax Pinnacle Clicktight retails for around $369, but when I looked on Amazon, I found one fabric option was priced at $277. Someone nabbed the previous generation G1 for $164 on there. You just have to keep an eye out and be flexible about colours.

(None of my stuff here is referral linked as I don't monetize. If you do decide to purchase something on Amazon, however, my friend, Savanna, has a referral link here. She is not affiliated with any blog, business or organisation.)

Thursday, February 12, 2015

When people discuss vaccinations, they are typically referring to the vaccination program for infants and children. This program, including prenatal vaccines, just reached 58 vaccines by age 6 for 2015.

In the vaccination debate, the focus is on the process of injecting a minor (baby, toddler, child) with a prophylactic medication. When people discuss vaccine compliance, they are referring to forcing parents to vaccinate their children.

People in this debate rarely discuss consenting adults who can make a voluntary, informed decision to vaccinate THEMSELVES.
In other words, the debate itself is rigged. It's inherently flawed.

If this were truly about the noble mission to protect the helpless and the innocent, then our program would be the exact opposite. We would be calling for all adults to roll up their sleeves to get all the vaccinations, and then requiring regular titre testing and re-vaccination if immunity thresholds weren't high enough.

In a world where the innocents and vulnerable populations truly get protection, the adults would be sacrificing for the children.
Instead, what our most people in the debate want is for the MOST vulnerable to be fully vaccinated under mandatory law and societal pressure while the adults get to decide which vaccines to get, if any at all.

We want the people with the LEAST DEVELOPED IMMUNE SYSTEMS, who are most sensitive to adverse reactions during their brain and body development, the ones who cannot consent, and who cannot even talk to describe their pain or adverse reactions, to be forced to endure prophylactic medical interventions.

The thing is, whether you're pro-vaccine, or anti-vaccine, or questioning, or moderate, or selective, or anything else, a vaccination is a medical procedure with potential side effects and risks that can be short term or long term, acute, or chronic. It is a product being inserted into your body that exerts numerous changes, whether considered healthy or damaging, or a bit of both.

Let's look at antibiotics as an example. This is fitting because several vaccines contain traces of antibiotics, but the analogy is still restricted since in most cases, antibiotics are prescribed to treat an existing medical condition.

When you take antibiotics, you consent to a risk to yourself and a risk to others. You can directly injure or kill yourself, and you alter the bacterial ecosystem, resulting in resistant strains that put the entire world at risk.

So, for example, thanks to people and the agri-industry overusing antibiotics, we now have super-bugs as the media calls them. These super-bugs pose increased risk of morbidity and mortality. A recent study claims they will kill up to 10 million people annually.

Similarly, the decisions you make regarding vaccinations will alter your health and the rest of society.

All of this on some level would still make a little bit of sense because so far we've been discussing an adult making a personal informed decision about her body.

That's not what the vaccine campaign is about, though. The CDC children's program isn't about adults freely consenting to what products they put into their body that might also pose a risk to others, such as smoking or driving drunk, or using carcinogenic household products that are washed into our water supply.

This is about demanding that parents force vaccines into their non-consenting children when no disease is present and lesser treatments (nutrition, supplements, breastmilk, etc) have not been tried first.

Wanting to force a medical treatment onto a non-consenting person without immediate lifesaving necessity is unethical. It violates every aspect of ethical medicine in our human existence.

"The patient should make his or her own determination about treatment... Informed consent is a basic policy in both ethics and law that physicians must honor, unless the patient is unconscious or otherwise incapable of consenting and harm from failure to treat is imminent." ~American Medical Association

Vaccine proponents demanding for compulsory vaccination of minors are saying that parents must put medical products with side effects and risks into their children regardless of bodily integrity and basic human rights.

It gets really easy to see that the vaccine program is faulty when you look at the population divide. A minority, 24%, of the population is aged 18 and under. Whereas adults make up 76% of the population. So, the vaccine program literally rests on forcing a vulnerable minority to protect the rest of the population.

The CDC vaccination program is specifically directed towards minors who cannot consent to a prophylactic medical intervention given in the absence of disease and without any immediate lifesaving indication.

Let's say what needs to be said here. The vaccine debate is not only about diseases and efficacy, studies and money. It's a debate about basic human rights to bodily integrity and informed consent in the medical system. It's a debate about whether or not we value the voiceless, the defenseless, and the innocent. It's a debate about whether the shepherds will sacrifice for their herd, or whether they will force lambs to be sacrificed instead. It's a debate over the value of our children. Are they people deserving ethical medical care, or are they merely living, breathing immune machines to shield society?

If you believe in vaccine theory and you want to alter society's epidemiology of disease for better or for worse, then YOU roll up your sleeve and YOU make that choice. Don't pretend your desire to force every infant and child to endure 58 vaccines by age 6 is somehow altruistic and noble. If you're a shepherd, then you stand between the wolf and lambs, not behind them for herd protection.

Check out the 3 pages of vaccine ingredients released by the Centers for Disease Control. (Although, you'll want to cross reference with the vaccine companies when reading the CDC page because sometimes this document is slightly inaccurate or out of date.)

Dig through the CDC Pinkpages to begin learning about various illnesses. Learn how they are transmitted, how they work in the body, common symptoms, rare symptoms, individual risks, natural and allopathic treatment, etc.

Explore the government website for vaccine reactions to determine which reactions are more likely to be associated with which vaccines and at what ages to give you a starting point for assessing your child's individual risks.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

If you're in the natural community, then you've probably adopted the generic assumption that phytic acid is harmful and should be avoided. Many call it an anti-nutrient, and most of the discussion about grains focuses on how to reduce or eliminate phytic acid from the diet. The same goes for soy and flaxseed to a lesser and different extent.

As I've continued researching the minority who doesn't respond well to GAPS, Paleo, and other WAPF/NT restrictive diets, I've come across the interplay of inotisol and phosphorous storage cycles as a potential connection to the list of complaints these people have after changing their diets to be healthier.

I've long acknowledged the fall out, but only broadly associated it with vague malnutrition and endocrine issues. In other words, when someone switched to a paleo diet and experienced negative symptoms, I would in the past say it might indicate underlying thyroid and adrenal insufficiency, or mismanagement of macronutrients that can't compensate for the missing food groups.

Although it is sometimes still referred to as a B vitamin, it lost official status because the body can synthesize it in the gut using the glucose system. So it is not an essential nutrient. It is still an important substance to the body, however, as it is used for all systems in something called the secondary messenger system, or cell signaling.

Those familiar with gut health issues immediately see the red flag here. Normal bacterial balance and a normal glucose system are required to effectively synthesize this substance. Then the body has to convert it into various forms of inositol, each with a different purpose. IP6, for example, is noted for its potential anti-cancer behaviors. Myo-inositol and d-chiro-inositol manage insulin and can help balance the endocrine system. It's also used to direct nerves, balance calcium, maintain cell membranes, breakdown fats, etc.

So, if your gut flora is unhealthy, or you have insulin/glucose/diabetic issues, then your ability to synthesize and convert this substance might be completely impaired.

It leads you to a chicken or the egg question. Is someone with weight problems and sugar or alcohol addiction in an unhealthy state because she is eating all the sugar and grains? (Side note: sugar, carb, and alcohol cravings are considered a sign of potential inositol deficiency. Inositol and choline, another b-vitamin helper, are both used to assist with alcohol issues.) Or is she attracted to the sugar and grains because her body craves a nutrient it desperately needs to manage intracellular cell signaling?

She might have polymorphisms that make her body less efficient at converting. She might have other comorbid conditions that prevent synthesis. And if she decides to remove all sugars and grains from her diet to get healthy without addressing the deficiency in this area, what happens?

I'll tell you what happens. She feels like crap as she withdraws from the chemical addiction to the sugar and gliadins. But, then she feels pretty good for awhile because she's removed so much inflammation from her body. Soon enough, however, she notices some disturbing trends. Weight loss stagnates. She starts to experience thyroid complaints such as dry, cracked skin, hair loss, headaches, fatigue, sensitivity to cold, acne...Her digestive system becomes sluggish. She develops insomnia, depression, anxiety, or even begins bipolar episodes.

On the surface, paleo takes the blame. But it seems to me that the underlying issue was revealed by the dietary change. The previous high carb/high sugar diet was like a food crutch. Addressing the underlying issue quickly before symptoms cause their own injuries and conditions is vital.

Even more interesting in the balance of this topic is the realization that inositol has no noted side effects. And when they reached sky high levels, 10 times the recommended amount, the only symptom noted by some participants was diarrhea.

Many forms of supplemental inositol are quite inexpensive, too. I did notice in my readings that women using d-chiro-inositol for PCOS require very high dosages of this converted form, which does appear to be pricier than some of the other forms. (Read more here.)

If you're experiencing a cluster of common endocrine symptoms, especially after restricting your diet such as by going on GAPS or Paleo, it might be worth it to research the inositol issue. It could also be a cheaper, easier option for healing compared to the longer road of finding a doctor who will order full blood work for the thyroid and adrenals, deciding on thyroid medication, testing for autoimmune conditions, etc.

Next time you feel a craving for sugar, breads and pastas, carbs in general, or alcohol and fizzy drinks, stop the self-shaming and start thinking about inositol!

Here are some of the links I came across while researching this topic:

"Women with PCOS are also known to have a defect in their insulin-signaling pathways which are heavily dependent upon inositol-containing substances (phosphoglycan mediators). Supplying extra myo-inositol appears to temporarily correct the malfunctioning insulin pathways and reduce the signs and symptoms of insulin resistance."http://pcosdiva.com/2012/07/de-mystifying-myo-inositol/

"The combined administration of MI and DCI in physiological plasma ratio (40:1) should be considered as the first line approach in PCOS overweight patients, being able to reduce the metabolic and clinical alteration of PCOS and, therefore, reduce the risk of metabolic syndrome."http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22774396

One last note....be sure to research choline, which is considered another undercover B vitamin and helps inositol work in the body. Phosphatidylcholine is arguably the most bioavailable form. In my reading, it seems people need to take larges dosages of choline and inositol for best results.

Sunday, February 8, 2015

Scrolling through the debates, the mindless comments on articles, the newsfeed littered with vaccination discussion, it reminds you of something.

It wears on your self-esteem even if you claim it shouldn't, or say it won't. It stills your heart when you read the words. You've read them before. None of them are new in the debate. But, still, the weight they carry emphasizes the gravity of their meaning.

It's the knowledge that YOU are worthless. YOU are the one they said deserved to die, deserved to be maimed, deserved to feel pain, deserved to fall over the cliff.
YOU are the one who had to be sacrificed because others deserve to live more than you and to be happier and healthier than you.

See, when you're the faceless casualty of their war on disease, you're not even deserving of a nod of respect or a thank you.
Not only will you never get a "thank you" or a nod, or a moment of silence, but when you or your family bring up the vaccine reactions, you'll be attacked.

But, the inflammatory ones aren't the worst. It's the callous, calmly truthful ones that set a chill.

"So, some kids are going to be the 2 out of 100,000. That's to be expected."
"Reactions are rare, but they happen. That's life."
"I know some people will die, but that's necessary to save more lives."
"Some children are going to get hurt, but it's justified to help others."

The ones who know, the ones who openly admit it, who type with you late into the night, acknowledging that you're the one who must suffer so they can enjoy their supposed theory of herd health. Those are the worst.

Even if it's justified, though. Let's hold onto that thought. Let's say it's justified to deliberately use a program knowing it will kill some people, but potentially save others.
Shouldn't the emotional response at least be...solemn? Respectful? Grave? Compassionate even?

We as a society want to compel parents to obey, to participate in a program that like a lottery might end up maiming or killing their children. In exchange, potentially other citizens will be saved.

If that's the plan, when someone is maimed or killed, shouldn't there be some kind of respectful note of gratitude, a community acknowledging the sacrifice parents made for the rest?
Instead, you get spit in the face, laughed at, or labeled with mental illnesses. If you keep your story private, people assume you don't vaccinate because you listened to a celebrity. If you share your story, then people disrespect your child or claim that you're lying for attention.

And then there are the ones who fought. The ones who went to the vaccine injury court, and spent thousands, and fought, often for months or years to get their child's case in front of a judge. Afterwards, they are legally gagged, unable to talk about what happened. Stuck listening to people prattle on about how "rare" vaccine injuries are and how they've "never heard of a vaccine injury." Their mouths taped shut, their eyes staring at the screen with tears in them.

My daughter Lorrin Kain was injured by her one and only Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus, (DPT), vaccine April 27, 1994. It was on that day Lorrin became a statistic. I also became a statistic just for being her mother. The government felt my daughter's life was an appropriate exchange for what they refer to as herd immunity. She was sacrificed for the health of all babies.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

What I usually see when it comes to vaccine discussion are parents with a variety of opinions and decisions, who tend to respect others' decisions. For example, several of my friends vaccinate, some on time, some delayed, some very selectively. Some of them vaccinated and then stopped. Some do not vaccinate at all. Most of them are quiet about the topic, or simply support what other parents have decided for their family.

Unfortunately, with wave after wave of seemingly orchestrated media campaigns whipping up a frenzy, I've noticed a minority that appears to want to drag the discussion down to a dysfunctional, even abusive level. I've seen people rallying around the idea of throwing parents into jail, kidnapping their children to forcefully vaccinate them, calling for fines, advising other parents to call CPS on family members, etc.

This growing sentiment is militant, but it also reminded me of a topic I've been researching for the last few months. As I started to read the numerous comments and posts in my newsfeed, I couldn't help connecting the dots. I would never personally diagnose individuals, nor is that the point of this post, although I'm sure someone out there will attempt to twist it that way. It's not a new concept at all, actually. Many an author and public researcher has warned about an alarming increase in narcissism and you can find a slew of articles and books discussing the "culture of narcissism" or "epidemic of narcissism" going on in our country right now.

More importantly and perhaps completely overlooked is how parents are easily manipulated. With a little pandemonium over measles, we've all forgotten about some really big issues.

While everyone was busy trying to jail all the "antivaxx" parents, did anyone hear about the judge who refused to dismiss a case from two former Merck employees on fraud? Read about it here.

You can find plenty more, if you stop waving pitchforks at other parents long enough to read. India is having a hard time right now. China already finished up the bribery case with a vaccine company.

Maybe, this militant group drawing fire on the extreme minority (0.5-1.49%) of vaccine free citizens is merely a puppet for a larger industry that doesn't want attention right now. Reminds me of the formula industry and their talented play on the mommy wars.

Has a grandiose sense of self-importance:
-Other parents must sacrifice their children for her and/or her children.
-The rest of society must comply to protect her health/children's health.
-He feels so important that he believes other parents must be forced by the government to vaccinate their children.

Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love:
-If every single person is forced to be vaccinated, society will end all disease (dying, suffering).
-These magical vaccines are society's ultimate answer.
-Vaccination will fix everything without any side effects or downsides.
-If she can only make every single person get every single vaccine, she will have control of disease.

Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions):
-He says the "unvaxxed" should be forced to live in patrolled communes.
-Thinks anti-vax people are stupid and perpetually diseased, and thus should be shunned.
-Unvaxxed kids should be forced into their own schools.
-She wouldn't expect them to understand, science is too much for them.
-He doesn't have friends with those silly notions. He only likes science-minded people.

Requires excessive admiration:
-Refuses to discuss any potential side effects or downsides of the decision to vaccinate.
-Becomes defensive and critical if vaccination is questioned.
-Immediately takes vaccine discussion personally, accuses the other person of judging or calling him a bad parent.

Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations:
-Believes other parents should be inconvenienced to stay away from her children such as by avoiding public areas regardless of current health.
-Claims that she has a right to sue parents of vaccine free children over illnesses.
-Automatically defaults to vaccinated individuals, i.e. the vaccinated receive preferred treatment in public areas and the vaccine-free must leave or be marked with special badges and paperwork.

Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends:
-Promotes "herd immunity" the idea that innocent children should be sacrificed to protect him.
- Defends a program that eliminates the bodily integrity and human rights of other people.
-Expects a percentage of children to be killed or maimed by vaccines for his goals.

Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others:
-Denies vaccine injuries.
-Mocks parents of injured children or claims they are lying.
-Attempts to compare and judge conditions in a callous manner, such as claiming autism is better than contracting measles.
-Dismisses or ridicules individual beliefs, opinions, or medical needs.

Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her:
-Complains that vaccine-free families didn't have to sacrifice as much as they did with vaccination.
-Accuses vaccine free people of "riding on the backs of" vaccinated people.

Unless we're trying to ignore the current whistleblower issues and vaccine scandals with Merck.
Then suddenly Measles is more important than all the other truly deadly and dangerous things out there.

What is up with this talk about suing people who are vaccine-free?

Reality check. All those parents who are CHOOSING to use vaccine products on their children, how about I sue THEM if their genetically altered vaccine-virus or resistant bacterial strains infect my children, who have multiple gene polymorphisms that put them at increased risk for complications?

These people don't HAVE to use this product. And they REFUSE to use it safely, such as by avoiding public places after vaccination or by correctly identifying disease signs and staying at home instead of medicating to hide the symptoms.

Scientists and vaccine companies know the vaccine strains are more "virulent" or "stronger invivo" as they say in their studies. Their vaccine inserts have warnings that include staying away from pregnant or sick people. The polio vaccine strain that mutated down in Nigeria, for example, goes around killing people.

It just seems to me that if parents want to inject their healthy children with these risky products, they should be held accountable when the products cause side effects or increase risks for others, be it from shifting epidemiology, to mutated strains, to atypical outbreaks.

Case in point: PCV7 (prevnar) was widely used by vaccinating parents, and as a result, encouraged something called serotype replacement, where the little bad buggies were killed off, allowing the big, bad buggies to come in and become resistant not only to the vaccine, but also to antibiotics:

“However,immunization can also placeselective pressure on the nasopharyngeal flora, promoting theemergence ofnew pathogens.A shift towards non-vaccineserotypes has been observed among vaccinees in several studies.109 In South Africa, the carriage of non-vaccine serotypeswas increased from 24% in controls to 36% in the vaccinesgroup. A significant increase was seen in the carriage ofserotypes 7 and 15, important causes of invasive disease.109”

Scientists also found an increased risk of contracting bacterial strains that cause antibiotic-resistant ear infections. So because a bunch of parents wanted to vaccinate their children with this crap, MY KIDS are now at increased risk of contracting antibiotic resistant bacterial infections that cause things such as hearing loss or encephalitis.

Another case: Everyone shot themselves up with the pertussis vaccine for years, only to find out last year that the pathogen has now mutated and is showing resistance to the vaccines and to the antibiotics. In addition, those who vaccinated altered their immune systems, increasing their vulnerability to parapertussis:

"In contrast, vaccination led to a 40-fold enhancement of B. parapertussis colonization in the lungs of mice. Though the mechanism behind this increased colonization was not specifically elucidated, it is speculated to involve specific immune responses skewed or dampened by the acellular vaccine, including cytokine and antibody production during infection. Despite this vaccine being hugely effective against B. pertussis, which was once the primary childhood killer, these data suggest that the vaccine may be contributing to the observed rise in whooping cough incidence over the last decade by promoting B. parapertussis infection. "

So now all these vaccinated people are spreading their diseases around with blind ignorance because they 1) refuse to acknowledge that they have a serious illness since they are vaccinated and 2) they choose to mask their illness with medications to keep sending their kids to schools, birthday parties, etc.

Reminds me of the antibiotic overuse issue. I've never used antibiotics, and my children have never used them. We also avoid triclosan. I respect the process of antibiotics and could see using them for a life threatening situation. Oh! WAIT! Except a bunch of other parents poured 'em down their children's throats like candy for every cough and sniffle, and now we have scientists telling us we're in for massive death campaigns from antibiotic-resistant "superbugs." (This article talks about 10 million estimated deaths due to the antibiotic issue. Wow, wonder why the media is talking about measles in the face of 10 million MRSA deaths.)

Wonderful. Thanks, Herd. Wonderful decision you forced onto us ALL. And then you want to whine about suing me. *rolls eyes*
If you want to inject your child with disease and contaminants, with pathogens and chemicals, I find that horrid. No, I won't say follow all the others on the internet who say, "It's your choice," because I don't think it's anyone's choice to force unnecessary medical intervention onto defenseless people unless required to immediately save a life when lesser options have failed.

But, at the least, if you're going to stick with it, you should also be stuck with cleaning up the consequences of your choice.
Diseases are mutating. Antibiotics and vaccines are failing. Serotype replacement is occurring. Secondary infection is an actual issue. Maternal-fetal immune methods have been interrupted. Epidemiology of childhood illnesses have been shifted. You played with fire and you caught OUR HOMES on fire in the process. Where is OUR retribution? Sue ME? I'm not the one screwing around with the force of nature using rudimentary theories from over a hundred years ago. I'm not the one wantonly altering a system scientists are still struggling to understand.

"Trained immunity is capable of providing non-specific protection from secondary infections. However, the mechanisms of how trained immunity is initiated and maintained remain unclear. Recent research has found that epigenetic changes occurred in innate immune cells when exposed to certain pathogens or their antigens and are an important feature of trained immunity. But the specific genes and biochemical pathways associated with trained cells were unknown."

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Fuck you. Not only did you have to throw gasoline on the mommy wars. Not only did you have to twist your little victimized puppets even more so they get all teary eyed and feel at home in their victimized roles. Not only did you have to confirm that breasts only sell beer or belong on porn sites. Not only did you distract from necessary, reasonable discourse on infant health. Not only did you brazenly use female insecurities to profit.

But, you also made the males a group of dumb, lazy, uneducated dads who don't really care either way and relinquish any important decisions to the female, as if we aren't invested in the health and wellbeing of our babies. As if we are incapable of caring about something as important as what babies grow on.

Once again to make a buck, a company has decided to characterize us as bumbling idiots who can't be bothered to stand up for what's important or who would rather grill some dogs and laugh about boobs than stand tall next to our females. Really, the big spot we get on your mega-million commercial is the overused repertoire of men sitting around a picnic table talking about the female breast?

Your ad has a lot wrong with it, on many levels, some of which are probably lost on people who refuse to learn about basic marketing techniques or who don't want to open their eyes to the psychological techniques in the advertising industry.

A lot of mothers probably watched your ad with oxytocin flowing as tears ran down their cheeks. The hate! The oppression! Oh, the hardships of the evil ladies with boobs a'flopping everywhere coming after them! How wonderful that a formula company has come to save the day. For a price.

You could've stopped there. It was enough to take something as important as the complete nutrition and emotional development of infants and denigrate it to the level of a personal opinion. But, no. You had to add in the dads.

Well, let me remind you. Dads are not stupid. We are not pliable formula mouthpieces. We might not easily or naturally lactate, but we still parent.

When my wife was learning how to breastfeed, I was by her side. When the babies awaken at night, I'm there to help. I've read a damn piece of medical literature or two or eighty. I've done what I can to support, encourage, and appreciate my wife's breastfeeding relationship with my children.

I am not a mindless, stupid drone who thinks boobies are for me to motorboat or stare at on a porn site.

You can take your pseudo-psychology marketing gimmicks and shove them in a can of formula. At least one dad didn't buy into your dumbed down message and sure didn't appreciate your attempt to once again frame men as spineless idiots.

And I sure as hell don't wear crotchdanglers. For genitals' sakes, did you have to show so many crotchdanglers?